My friend Angela (who I met through a local pal on the internet about 13-14 yrs ago) was down in southern Chester County to go to….can you guess? Longwood Gardens! She arrived in the afternoon of Thanksgiving when I was a tad busy, but Brian and I were able to have dinner with Ang and her hubby Bob the next evening. We had a nice Italian dinner and they really enjoyed it as that’s the kind of food Bob likes the best. We exchanged birthday gifts. Angela made me from sweet items, a little book made with cardboard houses and she decorated each front differently. And she made some cute hanging decorations, one with a ‘D’. I’ll have to photograph them. I gave her one of the 4″ x 4″ collages of with an antique print of a lady and child and birds in a pretty frame.

Here we are after dinner

Brian has a little problem with the camera phone,

because with the same camera I got this shot last night:

Brian is standing there in the white and red hat looking like he is getting ready for Christmas!

A fella from my high school has a bonfire event at his house each year, but usually on Black Friday. He switched it to Saturday and boy did he have a crowd. There were people from many different years of high school, but I only knew about 8 people at the time we were there. That fire sure got hot. There were about 3-4 large tables of food-barbecued meats, chili and mac and cheese, desserts. I took a bean dip and finger foods not knowing what I brought would be such a small amount. Bill was so nice. He said they have a little cooking competition with the chili and when we left he hugged and kissed me, thanking us for coming. : ) I saw a few of the same ladies who were at the pumpkin carve a few weeks earlier.

We stopped by my mom’s house as she wanted me to get some birthday gifts. I had asked for sheets and she delivered. Also got a big red mercury glass owl and Brian had gotten me a smaller one. I see a Christmas vignette in the making. We had a good time, and Brian seemed to loosen up a bit at the bonfire. It’s been a rough year for him. My brother had decorated the front windows of my mom’s house with clear lights and mostly red decorations. Inside he had started to set up his lighted houses-a harbor scene-very nice!

Mercury’s retrograde periods can cause our plans to go awry. However, this is an excellent time to reflect on the past. Intuition is high during these periods, and coincidences can be extraordinary. (Or things just start ‘happening’ for no reason…..)

I was telling people on Facebook how my day has had it’s ups and down. A pal who is a psychic (it says spiritual as occupation) said it sounded like I was being affected by the Mercury retrograde which is occurring for the next several days.

I woke up not feeling well, so not sure if it was sinuses or a cold. I’ve been ‘deep’ cleaning a lot, so I’m thinking it’s the dust factor. I’m glad I digging deep, but it happens almost every time.

I had a few knocks on the door-good stuff was delivered!

First from my friend Angela from NY

So pretty and perfect for the autumn!

The Fed Ex came and these Peruvian Lilies were from my mom. I had sent her some and they lasted a long time.

Sean wanted to take me out to lunch and I had a Livingsocial.com voucher that would fit the bill. It was a British Tea Room over in Delaware.

We were a wee bit late and Sean was like deer in headlights. There were mostly women, but a few teenagers who ogled him like he was a teeny bopper singer. : )

We both had Christmas teas. I had like a coconut, vanilla and Sean had a chocolate mint.

I had to order the ‘High Tea’ as part of the voucher. I had an entire pot of tea plus this and a salad.

egg salad, chicken salad and cucumber tea sandwiches on the lower tier; Cherry scone and a sausage biscuit in the middle and dessert-mostly pumpkin enhanced. I shared many of these with Sean who had a salad, egg salad, pasta salad and fruit salad.

That cellphone would prove to be the first mercury retrograde of the day. More later.

He looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

Look, another guy Sean!

There were a few geocaches found. It’s fun with Sean. The first one was behind the shopping center where we had lunch. We went up a little hill near a ball field. There was a cement barrier. We saw it inside a log!

We got gas and there was one near the lamp post-ha ha.

We decided to go to Kmart. Brian needs new clothes now. I got him a shirt and jeans and a few other things. I had left my phone in the car to charge up and I went to look at it and it was completely dead. I can usually get it to start up again. We had saved our tea and Sean had gotten a drink from Subway (for his dinner as he has class) and I had to hold the now lukewarm tea. Brian called twice on Sean’s phone and the second time he threw it at me and the tea went all over the mat (my car). It had a lid on it too. So I drove home with my feet up. It only got wet around the edge of the rug.

We went out to dinner as I had gotten a birthday pack with assorted, mostly restaurant coupons, so I picked (www.birthdaypack.com) a place down in Hockessin, DE. I ordered a Denver steak, medium well and it came almost black on the outside and mostly red on the outside. I complained and I got my wine for free.

I came home and plugged my phone in and it started to reboot (I had even called T-Mobile and was told to get a new battery). I did order the battery anyway.

On top of all that I am just plain grouchy-I really tried not to be too.

I’m waiting for Sean to come home from class to have cake.

Got a call from my brother Ken and niece Tori, so that made me feel better.

Since Sean had a night class on his birthday, I took him out to a late lunch to The Olive Garden, one of his favorite restaurants. I always mention geocaching to him and he doesn’t mind checking out a few of them. His phone works pretty good pinpointing the cache.

First we went to one in a series of shopping center caches. It was near a pretty line of trees and a golf course.

It was a quick 5 minute find next to the fence (on the ground) that separates the shopping area from the golf course.

We then did a little shopping in Marshall’s-they always have good stuff. I got a little ornament display piece with an owl on top and last night hung most of my Halloween balls on it. I got a big box of Susan Branch greeting cards (she does homey watercolor art) for $3.99-there are 40 of them!

So the next stop was Best Buy, but I stayed in the car and browsed Geocaching.com. I saw there was another cache around the corner and it may interest Sean because of his college classes.

We get to the cache which is also the highest elevation in Delaware! A lady drove by and asked if we were ‘high markers’ and I was trying to be inconspicuous and of course said ‘yes’. Well low and behold her mom is into this organization and before we knew it, a 79 yr old lady came walking across the street.

We got in a few hours ago after seeing my mom on her big day. She wasn’t up to par and feeling blue, but I had gifts I had found that I knew she would enjoy.

First we stopped off for that one geocache down in a Quaker Cemetery in Concordville. It was right near where the Delaware County Community College use to be in the 1960s to early 70s before they build the new place where I attended and enjoyed.

So Brian had to play monkey man and climb a tree for the cache! He did well, but I didn’t want him to take a tumble.

Can you see it?

It’s green and up high in the middle.

So we got to mom and she enjoyed the gifts we brought. I found a 1939 World Fair book, not in good shape, but she liked it as she was 8.5 when she went!

I got her some marker pens she asked for and a few other little things.

My phone camera was a little wonky here.

Looke at the beautiful St. Bernard’s my great grandfather William painted. He painted signs for a living. He was a wonderful artist and I wish we had more of his work, though not sure if he did a lot of works like this.

It’s difficult to believe that 100 yrs have past and my late grandmom was only 8 years old when Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk coming from Liverpool, England to New York City on it’s maid voyage. I made the above collage several years ago and probably shared it back then. We got married on the anniversary of the ship hitting the iceberg, the 14th, but it sank a few hours later in the wee hours of the 15th. I was reading about a 22 year old actress Dorothy Gibson who recalls the chilling sounds of people calling out to be saved that haunted her the rest of her life. We’ve seen a few Titanic exhibits over the years which were interesting and sad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Monday really threw us for a loop because of my father-in-law’s nosebleed issue. I sure hope he’s not going to start getting blood pressure spikes as the lady in the dentist office (I had to go there on Wednesday to get a filling replaced-again) said that started happening to her mom because of hbp.

I’ve just been running around locally shopping here and there a bit while Bri was figuring out tax stuff which took several hours on the phone with his dad. I will be so glad when it’s all settled.

Tonight is a little party for my niece who turned 13 on the 11th. I bought her many different things from our travels here and there. I just made her a huge tissue paper flower.

Yesterday my middle brother was taken to the hospital by ambulance as he had chest pains at work. He was having them a bit a week ago and now he thinks it’s his gallbladder. They are watching him tonight. The hospital is 5 minutes from his new office building and where I’ve had some procedures. He was a terrible foul mood last week and yelled and cussed at me for nothing. His complaint was I don’t do enough for mom and there I was taking her to the eye doctor and grocery store. My other brother (I have 3) and me had our gallbladders out when we were in our 20s.